Why Are The Employees At This Store So Sad?

By cwaltersJune 14, 2008

Jean writes:

I was browsing in a local shopping center today and I came across the greatest tee shirt hung on display outside their door. My husband started turning it over looking for a price tag and I almost fell over laughing when he uncovered the treasure it had buried.

After all is said and done, it’s kind of ironic that this is the way we treat people from whom we want something. Businesses abusing customers and employees, customers and employees abusing each other…

There are people who haven’t seen this shirt (or a variation on it) a thousand times by now, in one of the gazillion stores you can find it in, especially in tourist and/or college towns?

There are people who would see this shirt for the first time and refer to it as “the greatest tee shirt”?

Okay, really: what are these people doing with their lives that leaves them that out-of-touch? I get that it’s mildly amusing that the shirt was obscuring the “now hiring” sign, but come on. I had a button with this slogan on it in the 1980s, for crying out loud.

@ClankBoomSteam: What are you doing with your life that you have time to track this shirt everywhere it appears? I know I’ve seen the slogan before, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a t-shirt with it, so it’s not hard to believe other people haven’t, either. Some people don’t pay much attention to t-shirt stands. *shrug*

Funny, isn’t it, that we think this joke is so hilarious when we think of applying it in the workplace, but we think it’s so dead serious when we apply it to punishing children in order to attempt to force them to be virtuous and cheerful.

And if you disagree, especially if you hit your children, don’t replying with “I was spanked and I turned out OK.” We know exactly how you turned out. You turned out to be someone who passionately and unthinkingly defends the privilege of adults to hit children.

@SacraBos: So how well does pain help you learn? Do you allow you boss to hit you every time you make a mistake on the job? Do you ask your spouse to hit you if you don’t pick up after yourself at home? Can the policeman hit you for being disprespectful?

@ClankBoomSteam: Some of us do not put much consideration into t-shirt slogans. I’m sure that there are dozens of things that anybody could come up with on a regular basis that are old and tired for them, but may seem new and interesting to you. I’d wager that the overwhelming majority of people in the world do not spend all that much time thinking about popular slogans on pins, bumper stickers, and t-shirts.

It’s not that I spend an inordinate amount of time pondering t-shirt slogans or whatever, it’s just old, that’s all. It’s ubiquitous. I have probably seen some variation on that design in every gift shop I’ve set foot in fr the last 20 years. Sorry if I can recall doing so, but that doesn’t mean I have my finger on the pulse of the novelty t-shirt world. It means I’ve been in an average number of gift shops over the last couple of decades, and this one is right up there with “You Want It WHEN?” or “I’m With Stupid”. If it’s something you enjoy, good on ya. More power to you. I’m just amazed that someone would find it novel, that’s all.